If James Bland still had that 58 Desoto convertible that he was driving in the beginning of the movie he'd have a rare beast today. What I don't get is why Chevy decided to pit the car against other GM cars (except for the Fairlane GT) and not other Fords, Mopars and even an AMC.

If James Bland still had that 58 Desoto convertible that he was driving in the beginning of the movie he'd have a rare beast today. What I don't get is why Chevy decided to pit the car against other GM cars (except for the Fairlane GT) and not other Fords, Mopars and even an AMC.

Agreed, why would they take aim at their own marques with all the other competition out there?

My guess, GTO was the FIRST muscle car, and set the standard, and Chevy was trying to catch up 2 years later, so they HAD to take on the GTO. Notice they did a pretty good slam against Ford, with the GT being one letter short, and it was far behind both GM products in the "races"

In those years GM brands always competed against each other and did not share secrets unless the top brass ordered them to. An example was in the early 50's when Pontiac was ordered to share the lifter and rocker arm design with Chevrolet to help Chevy design the small block 265. The lightweigth without having to use a rocker shaft assembly was the final design chev needed to finish the development of the v8 smallblock.